Semantic Knowledge Management

Intelligent Software Applications

Automated solutions for information retrieval from large amounts of data

Bioinformatics is hampered by a data deluge. New methods in genetics, proteomics, meta­bolomics and biochemics in combination are generating data at an unprecendeted pace. Combining these data with information contained in a fast growing number of biomedical publications and structured databases requires automated solutions.

One of the possible strategies to combine information from the aforementioned heterogeneous data sources is to use semantic (web) technology. Semantic technology can be used to overcome the differences in naming between the various information sources.

Key aspects

Semantic concept recognition based on open source indexers

Development of ontologies and thesauri to be used for semantic applications

Creation of semantic triple stores

Development of applications that can exploit these semantic triple stores

Example application

In order to make the information from several sources manageable by computer programs, various formalisms have been invented. One formalism that draws quite some attention is the nano-publication. A nano-publication is a logical predicate (a specified relationship between a subject and object, a so-called triple) with contextual information and provenance data. This formalism has been invented to quickly be able to reason over large sets of triples for various tasks. One possibility is to discover semantic indirect connections (paths) between two data items in the triple store. These relationships can be scored on basis of their newness.